Facilitating data communication in remote locations, especially in the Polar Regions and remote land and sea regions, is challenging. For instance, modern maritime vessels require data communications for receiving route information and route updates, while remote mining facilities require data communications for transmitting measurement data to a central operating office. Also, personnel working in such remote locations require data communication for sending or receiving emails, instant messages, and voice and/or video calls.
In general, there are various applications of facilitating data communication to remote regions. However, there exists a need of such data communication services at reasonable costs and with high data transfer speeds.
It has been known for a long time that radio waves operating in a High Frequency (HF) band can carry information over long distances, in some circumstances over 10000 km. The HF band is typically used by international shortwave broadcasting stations, aviation communication systems, maritime sea-to-shore services, government time stations, weather stations, amateur radio and citizens band services, and Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS).
However, radio technologies conventionally used in the HF band are ill-suited for data communications. Moreover, building a network of base stations for providing a good network capacity and coverage in the remote regions would be costly.
Furthermore, satellite communications (SATCOM) has also been used conventionally for facilitating data communications in the remote regions. However, the satellite communications offer a poor service in the Polar Regions and are expensive.